


One does not become two by ever ending

by Tam_Cranver



Category: A Little Chaos (2014)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-17
Updated: 2017-12-17
Packaged: 2019-02-16 06:05:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,869
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13048032
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tam_Cranver/pseuds/Tam_Cranver
Summary: It isn't that Sabine is ungrateful for the success she's had, but she wouldn't say no to a little more time with André. Every new relationship needs some time and space to grow.





	One does not become two by ever ending

**Author's Note:**

  * For [kereia](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kereia/gifts).



> The title comes from "If a Garden of Numbers" by Cole Swensen. The timeline of when, exactly, Philippe d'Orléans attained what parts of the estate at Saint-Cloud are pretty fuzzy in this story, but I've tried to incorporate a few details about what the space was like.

If Sabine had thought that her success at Versailles would allow her some leisure, some time to rest on her laurels, she would have been sadly disappointed. Even had a garden of the colossal size and variety not required constant upkeep and a truly dizzying population of workers, some of whom were now Sabine’s to direct, her new reputation as a favored gardener of the king meant that for the first time in her life, her work was actually in demand, not simply by the merchants and financiers she had worked for in the past but by nobles, with whom she was now rubbing elbows regularly. Long gone were the days of unemployment when she sketched plans in her cottage with only Louise for company. Some days she woke and could not tell whether she was dreaming or not. 

“Surely you cannot be too surprised,” André said when she told him as much one morning in bed, stroking a finger up the curve of her neck. “Success breeds success. More so when you’re well liked, which you are.”

“I wouldn’t say I’m surprised, exactly,” Sabine protested. His touch verged on ticklish, it was so light, but the roughness of his calluses grounded her. Surely people didn’t have calluses in dreams. “Perhaps a bit…overwhelmed.”

“Yes,” said André wryly. “Overwhelmed, I can believe.”

André himself must have been a bit overwhelmed, Sabine thought, keeping up with the changes in the garden now that the king had married Madame de Maintenon. The elaborate flourishes that the Marquise de Montespan had so loved were wiped away, the pretty little Trianon knocked down, fountains robbed of their statues and simplified along straight, austere axes. André confessed that Maintenon’s preferences were more in line with his tastes than Montespan’s had been, but Sabine could not help but remember the Marquise’s kindness to her and feel uncomfortable, as if Montespan were being erased from the gardens she had been mistress of for so long.

She hoped that, if Philippe and Marie-Claire were looking down on her from heaven, that they did not feel as if they had been erased.

But Sabine scarcely had time to think about André’s work, busy as she was redrawing flowerbed designs and meeting with sculptors and measuring the angles of slopes. She was fashionable, an oddity, and so she had a great deal of freedom in her designs, and for once, the money and workmen to see them realized. And yet, she was…tired.

It did not go unnoticed. “Wash your face with cold water,” said Louise with a frown at least twice a week. “That’ll take care of the dark circles.”

“You feeling all right?” asked Monsieur Duras after Sabine had snapped at a porter who had let the roo tballs of her new orange trees dry. “Never seen you in such a mood. You look a bit wilted around the edges, too, if you don’t mind my saying. Too much sun, maybe.”

Luc took to offering Sabine the little pastries his wife packed in his lunch. Perhaps Sabine should have refused them, but they really were delicious.

It was not until one night when she was taking a walk with Antoine that these feelings of overwhelming exhaustion began to grow into something Sabine could look at and properly examine.

As usual, Antoine was dressed magnificently and Sabine felt like an idiot in an expensive dress Louise had had to pin her into. A grubby gardener in a lady’s costume. But if Antoine thought anything amiss, he said nothing about it to her, gracious as always, chatting away about his card games and the latest comedies he had seen and gossip about people whose names Sabine vaguely recognized. She herself had only to make a few encouraging remarks now and again and occasionally laugh at a joke, and Antoine would continue to act as if she were some sort of brilliant conversationalist. It was inconceivably relaxing.

“Ah,” said Antoine suddenly. “Finally, I’ve gotten some of that tightness out of your face.”

Sabine, who had closed her eyes, opened them again. “I beg your pardon?”

“All evening,” he said, “you’ve been wound tighter than a spring. What’s the trouble? Monsieur le Nôtre’s treating you well, I hope? Do tell me he is, I should hate to have to challenge the king’s favorite gardener to a duel.” His tone was light, as usual, but there was something grave in his eyes that made Sabine think that the question was genuine, and she felt obliged to rise to André’s defense.

“Of course.” And then, because she knew that Antoine knew about her and André, but she was never certain how much of these personal matters it was really wise to discuss in public, she added, “To be honest, I’d rather like to see more of him. That is, he’s been very busy with—with some of the new garden features Madame de Maintenon has requested, and I’ve been very busy with other designs, and of course I’m grateful for the business, but I very much enjoyed collaborating with Monsieur le Nôtre.”

“Collaborating,” Antoine said, his smile slowly growing.

Sabine could felt her face warm. There was nothing insinuating about Antoine’s tone, but she couldn’t help but think he thought she was speaking in euphemisms, like her garden work fit into the same category as her relationship with André. Which she supposed it did, but not in some tawdry way, as if André were only interested in sex or she were interested in using him to further her career.  “Yes,” she said, a little more sharply than she had meant to. “We don’t always agree on the particulars, but I have the highest respect for Monsieur le Nôtre’s ability to realize a vision. I learned very much from working on the ballroom with him, and I wish our respective careers would allow us to design another garden feature together. That’s all.”

Immediately after she finished this little speech, she felt as if she had probably said something foolish. But Antoine, who always seemed to find Sabine delightful when she said something foolish, laughed. “Yes, well, I can see that a garden, like anything else, requires a bit of time and care to tend. Give me a few days, and we’ll see if I can’t do anything about that.”

About what, Sabine didn’t know, but before she could ask, Antoine had drawn her into a discussion of Montespan’s latest gambling losses, and she set her concerns aside. A night of fun had never hurt anyone.

The next day, she was eating a quick bite of cheese and bread with Luc and Monsieur Duras when a liveried footman, barely more than a teenager and too tall for his uniform, picked his way through the turf clods and seedlings and cleared his throat. “Madame de Barra?”

Sabine brushed crumbs off her skirt. “Monsieur?”

The seedling footman gave her a nervous smile and said, “Monsieur the Duke of Orléans wants to speak with you.”

“ _Does_ he?” asked Monsieur Duras, his eyebrows raised. “You’re climbing to greater heights all the time, Madame de Barra.”

“Nonsense,” Sabine said firmly, although in all honesty, she had no idea what to expect. She followed the footman to a strange little grotto, with a sort of drowning giant statue out of which a fountain gushed. It was rather macabre—not André’s design, though she couldn’t remember whose it was. The Duke, who was seated at the fountain’s edge surrounded by an entourage of pretty young men, stood. His entourage followed suite.

“Madame de Barra!” said the Duke effusively. “My dear lady, how are you?”

“Quite well, Monsieur,” Sabine said, and submitted contentedly as he kissed her cheek. “And you?”

“Excellent!” he proclaimed. “I’ve just added a pretty little parcel of land to my estate at Saint-Cloud—have you been to Saint-Cloud?”

Sabine smiled. “I have not, Monsieur.”

The Duke’s eyes widened in feigned shock. “Not been to Saint-Cloud? Shameful. The estate’s beauty will never be complete without the hand of Madame de Barra—my dear, you must allow me to whisk you away!”

The Sabine of a year ago would not have known how to respond to the king’s brother flirting of her, but Sabine was very familiar now with the lightness the Duke used to cover his every concern and scheme, so she laughed and said, “Alas, Monsieur, my heart and hands belong to another. I am engaged to finish the orangery of the Duc de Saint-Simon.”

“Ugh,” said the Duke with a dismissive wave of one hand. “You’ll never finish that one, mark my words—Saint-Simon’s a sharp-tongued little gnat. Always something wrong with everything you do and say. Leave Monsieur le Duc’s oranges in the capable hands of that great strapping assistant of yours, and come to Saint-Cloud. Nolly will _never_ forgive me if I allow some other gardener to impose his design on the new untamed wilderness I’ve bought, and my dearest Palatine is enamored of your work. But you know that, of course.”

Sabine blinked, suddenly unsure where the conversation had taken her. “You mean—you wish for me and André to come and work on your gardens?”

“Absolutely,” said the Duke firmly. “It must be the both of you. It’s quite a lot of land I’ve obtained, you know. There may need to be some readjustments of what André’s already put in. And I _forbid_ you to rush. This will be quite a grand project, you understand. Months, perhaps.”

Months. Sabine swallowed. Months away from the court, working with André on a garden. One didn’t have to be a brilliant thinker to see Antoine’s hand in this. She had no idea how she was going to thank him. “Is…has his majesty the king given his approval?”

“His majesty the king _has_.” The Duke smiled at her, and Sabine felt lighter than she had in months.

André was not as immediately thrilled as Sabine might have hoped, worried that in his absence his rivals would do terrible things to his gardens—that wasn’t how he phrased it, of course, but Sabine could read between the lines. But all resistance vanished when the Duke told André he had purchased an island in the Seine.

“An _island_?” he demanded incredulously, for once forgetting his good manners. “You bought an _island_?”

“A very irregularly shaped one,” said the Duke placidly. “Covered in trees.”

André blinked, visibly collecting himself. “Do you have any topographical maps of the land?”

The Duke shrugged. “You know I generally like to leave that sort of thing to you.”

Sabine could see it all rolling out behind André’s eyes—the work of surveying the island, determining its relation to the existing gardens, and designing a set of features that suited the land. He let out a sigh and looked at a nearby pear tree as if it held the secrets he sought. The Duke caught the direction of Sabine’s gaze and winked at her.

“He may complain,” he told her under his voice, “but Monsieur le Nôtre _loves_ a challenge.”

Perhaps he was right. As they drove toward the chateau in a carriage shared by Luc and Monsieur Duras, André visibly brightened. He pointed out the way the drive to the main buildings provided an axis for the gardens, explained what the flowers and fountains directly in front of the castle would look like from the interior, which was where it was meant to be seen from; complained cheerfully about the uneven ground and the difficulties of taking advantage of the castle’s position by the river. Monsieur Duras, who was not used to André being so talkative, happily if cautiously talked about the ins and outs of earthmoving. When they were finished, Sabine leaned in a bit closer to André and said, “You love this garden, don’t you?”

André looked surprised at this, but after a moment, he nodded. “I do. It’s odd, because it’s probably the most frustrating garden I’ve ever worked on. The original layout was disastrously uneven, the terrain’s a constant problem, and Monsieur keeps buying new land and ruining the symmetry, but….” He paused to gaze out the window. “I get new ideas whenever I’m here. And perhaps it’s more satisfying to see them carried out because it’s so difficult.”

“I can understand that,” said Sabine. The idea of difficulty being rewarding was a new one to her. For a long, long time, difficulty had simply been difficult. There was nothing grand about it—simply surviving from sunup to sundown had been both a herculean task and its only reward. But now? With friends, and money, and a man whom she loved, Sabine was beginning to see the joy in a challenge again.

Very little seemed grand after working in the gardens at Versailles, but the Chateau de Saint-Cloud, crookedly facing the river from its place at the top of a hill, the gardens spread out in patches of green and arrangements of pools that seemed to come from nowhere as they drove on, was charming in a way that the intimidating splendor of Versailles didn’t always manage. There was something haphazard about it, she thought, that spoke to its designer’s ingenuity, his ability to adapt to changes.

It was, she thought in a spark of insight, very much André’s work. She wouldn’t have thought it based on that disastrous first interview, but then, she thought André had gotten a very inaccurate impression of her and her work from that interview, as well. The ability to capture the particular beauty of a spot, the flexibility and wildness that Sabine treasured, was here alongside the straight lines and carefully tamed shapes she associated with André’s style. It was chaos and order in one garden.

She reached for his hand. Like hers, it was rough, deeply engrained with dirt and grime, completely out of place against his clean clothing and the fine interior of the coach. As a general rule, they didn’t indulge in displays of affection in front of others, but this garden was something special. Sabine felt as if she were looking directly into the heart he hid at court, and that called for a similar show of feeling. She squeezed his hand once and let go, and he gave her a crooked smile. Monsieur Duras and Luc politely looked away.

Monsieur and Madame were waiting to greet them, the Marquis du Vasse in tow. “André! Madame de Barra!” the Duke said effusively. “My dearest wife suspected you would want to see the new additions to the estate immediately.”

“The new island is horrible, Monsieur le Nôtre, Madame de Barra,” said the Princess Palatine frankly. “A complete wilderness. There is almost no level land at all. You cannot even see the city, it is so overgrown. But we are doing marvels with engineering these days, so perhaps you will be able to make something out of it.”

Monsieur favored his wife with a dry smile. “Ever the optimist, my wife.”

“Why pretend?” said Madame. “We must pretend all the time at Versailles. Let us be frank here.”

The Duke looked as if he wanted to say something, but after a moment, he decided against it. “Yes, well, as long as we’re being frank, I can tell you that I’m famished. Let’s look at the new island and then have something to eat. You as well, Messieurs,” he added to Monsieur Duras and Luc. “Assuming your stomachs can bear it after the wretched drive out here.”

“Thanks very much, Your Grace,” said Monsieur Duras. “Wasn’t too bad, all told.”

“And there you have it.” The Duke raised his eyebrows. “Shall we?”

Madame hadn’t lied at all about the island. It was absolutely wild, full of rocky hills and sharp drops. The shape of it was a sort of lopsided diamond, though at present the points at the ends were more or less impassable. It would be well watered from the river, but integrating it into the main gardens would be a grave challenge.

Sabine loved it. The tangled roots of the trees, with their sinuous, irregular curves, made her think of waves. Yellow jonquils and gentians poked out from under the cover of leaves on the ground like little patches of sunlight. The rocky coasts had a stern austerity to them that reminded Sabine of the sea, giving a sense of grandeur to the little island, but a natural grandeur, the kind shaped by gods and not men. She could see fountains in her mind’s eye, parterres with curving beds of flowers in complex shapes, groves that would make you think you were a thousand miles from civilization. She suddenly knew what André meant about the place giving him ideas.

“So, do you think you can manage here?”

She was stunned out of her reverie by Monsieur, who was looking at her and André with a wry, slightly impatient smile. She turned her face slightly to meet André’s eyes.

He was smiling, and she could tell from the intensity behind it that he had ideas, too. Despite the hours of travel, Sabine had never felt more energetic.

“I think we can manage, Monsieur,” she said. “I think we’ll manage very well indeed.”


End file.
